


I Like You

by keirajo



Series: Random Transformers Works (multiple generations, etc.) [11]
Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: Cute, Fluffy, Valentine's Day Fluff, that's all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-22 15:56:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22718530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keirajo/pseuds/keirajo
Summary: Daniel shows Hot Rod how to make Valentine's cards for the ones he likes.  (It's total fluff for the holiday.)
Relationships: Just friendships - Relationship, i guess - Relationship, none really to speak of
Series: Random Transformers Works (multiple generations, etc.) [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1250396
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	I Like You

**Author's Note:**

> This CAN be related to my G1S3 stuff, and those that read it know how. Otherwise, it's a total standalone piece of writing. Just for the holiday. :)

**_ I Like You _ **

Hot Rod came into one of the main recreational areas of Metroplex and saw the little human boy he was often assigned to bodyguard ( _and babysit!_ ) sitting crosslegged on a large table with a bunch of papers and markers spread out all around him. Daniel Witwicky was five years old now, so he was no longer a sloppy, babbling toddler—as he was when Hot Rod first met the child—he had just started Kindergarten this year and was learning to “ _be responsible_ ”, in as much as a five-year-old human child could do.

“Where’s your mom and dad, kiddo?” The flame-colored mech asked, pulling up a chair to sit at the very Cybertronian-sized table—which was a monster table to a tiny human like Daniel and may as well have been the floor of a small room.

“Working somewhere around here ‘n’ stuff. Momma says I gotta work on my Valentines for school,” Daniel said, reaching up to rub the side of his face and forgetting he had a marker in his hand and got a big swath of red straight from his chin to his temple.

Hot Rod chuckled softly and got out a cloth, dampening it lightly with some water from the water battle on the table. Then he rubbed it lightly along the little boy’s face, trying to get the marker off. The young Autobot managed to get most of the marker off, but it would likely need soap and warm water to get the rest off. The child’s hands were practically rainbow-colored with marker use………. ** _that_** would probably take a week’s worth of washing to get all of that off!

“Valentines? What are those?” Hot Rod asked, curiously, looking at the spread of papers on the table around the boy. They were many different pastel colors, but primarily reds and pinks dominated the scraps of paper all over the place. They had cute animals or oddly-adorable monsters on them and cheesy little sayings like “ _I Wuff You_ ” and things like that. _‘Humans are so weird,’_ the flame-colored mech thought with a lot of fondness deep in his Spark.

“Momma says the holiday means a lot more, but I don’t get it yet. But we give Valentines cards to other people that we like on February fourteenth,” Daniel answered, setting the marker down before rubbing his head again this time. “Daddy got me both cute animals for girls and monsters for boys to give out to my class.”

“You must like a lot of people!” Hot Rod chuckled fondly, reaching over and rubbing Daniel’s head with a gentle digit.

“ _I guess_ ,” the boy answered with a shrug of his shoulders. “Momma says I gotta be fair and give one to everyone in my class, even if I don’t like them much,” Daniel pouted, grabbing his marker again to write on more Valentines.

Hot Rod made a little affirmative sound. He understood that even at young ages, humans were mostly taught to be “ _politically correct_ ” and to “ _play fair_ ” with all their other humans—whether they liked them or hated them. That never really lasted into the humans’ adulthood, it seemed. Adult humans could be pretty nasty and underhanded, especially to their fellow humans.

Despite the problems and issues this small and young species had, Hot Rod found he liked them anyways. _He really liked Daniel_ —he liked seeing the progression of a young life. The child liked him, too—often called him “ _big brother_ ”. He remembered leaving the Witwickys’ home on a daily basis, after he’d first been assigned to them, with his frame having sticky and colorful handprints all over it and the various reactions of the Autobots when he settled in to get cleaned up and recharge with great fondness. The first day he returned to the _ARK_ after spending the day with Daniel climbing all over him, his frame covered in toddler drool or vomit ( _something_ that came out of the kid’s mouth!), sticky handprints and smears of fingerpaints all over him—Gears had actually burst into uncontrollable laughter. **_GEARS!!!_**

“Big brother………… _here_!” Daniel said, cheerfully, interrupting Hot Rod’s warm and fond thoughts.

Hot Rod found the marker-stained hand holding up one of the pastel-colored scraps of paper up to him. It was one of Daniel’s Valentines and he’d put his own name on it in a white box that said “ _from_ ”, with wiggly letters that came close enough to looking like “ _Daniel_ ” for a name’s sake. The purple and pink Valentine card had a fuzzy orange monster with a single big blue eye, looking as if it were waving at the reader of the card. The cheesy little words on it said “ _You are my favorite monster! Happy Valentine’s Day!_ ” The young, flame-colored Autobot grinned and rubbed Daniel’s head gently.

“Thank you, Daniel. You are **_my_** favorite little monster, as well,” Hot Rod chuckled, fondly.

“Yay!” The boy gushed, happily, throwing up his arms and the marker in his right hand went flying, bouncing off the edge of the table and onto the floor—streaks of red marking the path of where it bounced or rolled along from the tip of the marker. “Are you gonna give Valentines to people you like?” Daniel asked as Hot Rod got up and picked up the marker, to hand it back to him.

The flame-colored mech used his cloth to clean up the marker streaks and then sat back down. “Well, we don’t really have a day like this back on Cybertron. I’m not sure anyone but those who’ve been on Earth for a while would understand what a Valentine is, but I’m definitely going to give one to you,” Hot Rod responded with a smile at the boy. “I’ll give it to you when I pick you up from school tomorrow, okay?” He added as he saw Daniel beam a joyous grin up at him and felt great warmth deep in his Spark. He quickly set a reminder to his HUD to make a Valentine for the boy before going off to recharge tonight.

Just then, Ultra Magnus came wandering by the open doorway of the recreational room and stopped to come inside, just right inside the doorway.

“Hot Rod, I’ve been looking for you,” the red-white-blue mech said in his normal, no-nonsense voice. “I need you to take over Bumblebee’s patrol right now. Bumblebee is needed by Prime for a press conference.”

“Got it,” the flame-colored mech responded, standing up right away. “You be good until your parents come and get you, alrighty there, kiddo?” He chuckled, rubbing Daniel’s head fondly, again.

“I will, big brother!” Daniel said, with a big grin.

Hot Rod followed Ultra Magnus out of the room and a thought occurred to him. You gave these Valentines to someone you liked—they basically said, “ _I Like You_ ”. Maybe this was how he could make friends of the Autobots here on Earth? A lot of people didn’t really try to interact with him very much, so he felt a little isolated and lonely—which was why he liked spending time with Daniel and the Witwicky family so much. The Autobots who’d been on Earth for awhile probably understood the meaning of Valentines…………

* * * * *

In all, the Autobots enjoyed the fact that Hot Rod gave out Valentines to all of them. All of the Autobots on Earth were aware of the holiday and how it was treated and to most of them, Hot Rod was like a kid himself. So, in their minds, they likened him to Daniel having to give out Valentines to everyone in his class. Well, all except for one Autobot………..

Ultra Magnus looked at the handmade card with puzzlement as he walked down to the medi-bay. Apparently Hot Rod had cut a bunch of cute pictures out of Earth magazines and made cutesy little sayings on them—on thick pieces of paper, better sized for Cybertronian servos. The fact that Hot Rod had made them was worrying Magnus to the fact that it said Hot Rod clearly did not get much recharge last night—and as a commander, he worried for his soldiers when they were not at their best.

“Good morning, Ultra Magnus,” First Aid greeted warmly. Since Ratchet had went back to Cybertron with many other Autobots that Optimus Prime took with him to try and stave off Megatron’s complete conquest of the planet—First Aid had been given medical administration duties on Earth. “Why do you look so puzzled?” He asked.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand this Earth Valentine thing,” the old soldier sighed, sitting down immediately on the exam table for one of periodic checkups.

“I think Hot Rod’s just trying to fit in and make friends. He seems rather lonely for being such a young mech,” the small medic replied, beginning to start diagnostics on the base commander. “Oh, I _really_ like yours. He put a lot more effort into yours than mine or some of the others I’ve seen.”

Ultra Magnus made a small sound in his vocalizer, looking at the card again. The whole background was like a sunset from here on Earth, clipped from a magazine and given some kind of decorative tape border. There were silhouettes of two figures—which were probably humans in the original photo, but looked as if they had been drawn over with a black marker to make their shapes look more Cybertronian instead—they were holding hands and facing towards the sunset.

“You bring color and light into my life.”

That was what the Cybertronian glyphs written along the edges said. Then in English at the bottom of the card it said: “Happy Valentine’s Day”.

“I think Hot Rod _really_ likes you a lot, Ultra Magnus,” First Aid chuckled. “I mean, yeah it is the meaning of a Valentine’s Day card and all that to say _‘I like you’_. But I think he _really, **really**_ likes you.”

“I was the first Cybertronian he met, at least that’s what he told me,” Magnus responded. It was even strange the way Hot Rod had said that to him, back on Cybertron—making it sound as if he’d emerged from Vector Sigma’s chamber alone, rather than with the standard group. It was back during a battle and Ultra Magnus’ armour had broken off. At the time he hadn’t realized he wasn’t wearing his armour and never thought about having been seen without it afterwards, but maybe to Hot Rod—he’d seen the real Ultra Magnus that no one else had.

_Hot Rod had seen Delta_.

“Impressions are important to newmechs, especially _first impressions_ ,” the small medic responded.

“ _Hmmmm_. Now what do I do?” Ultra Magnus mumbled, looking down at the card again.

“I think saying thank you, _with honesty_ , will be what Hot Rod really wants,” First Aid answered.

After his checkup was completed and Ultra Magnus returned to his office, he looked for a small frame to put the card in and propped it up on one of the display shelves of his wall cubby. Then he sent a message asking for Hot Rod to come to his office for a few moments. Of course, Hot Rod entered thinking he was going to be given a job to do.

“ ** _Oh!_** But I have to pick up Daniel from school in three hours, so whatever you give me can’t last _that long_!” The flame colored mech said, pacing the room.

“I have no assignments for you this morning, Hot Rod. I simply wanted to thank you for the card,” the base commander replied, nodding over to where he’d put it on the shelves of the wall behind him. “It is very beautiful. Thank you for making it for me,” he added with a nod and a warm smile.

“ _Oh!_ I’m glad you like it. I was trying to think of what fit with everybody when making them,” Hot Rod gushed, happily.

Ultra Magnus couldn’t possibly lecture him now about making sure he got a full night’s recharge—the young mech was incredibly happy at the moment, it completely suffused his field and his posture.

“Make sure you fuel properly this morning and go to recharge early tonight,” the red-white-blue mech said, compromising his words into something he felt was a little kinder. “I feel like you had a busy night last night and make sure you care for yourself, because you are important to all those around you. Especially to little ones like Daniel.”

Hot Rod looked _extremely happy_ right then. It made Ultra Magnus feel warm inside, like he’d said the right thing.

“ _I will! Thanks Magnus!_ ” The flame-colored mech gushed. He hopped up on the tips of his pedes and kissed Ultra Magnus’ cheek very quickly, before he could be told not to, and dashed for the door. “ _Thanks again! See ya later!_ ” Hot Rod called back, just before he left.

Ultra Magnus gave a soft little chuckle. First Aid was probably right. That Valentine’s card said that Hot Rod really liked him. It was good for Hot Rod to make friends of all the Autobots that he could around here—as a commander, while Ultra Magnus himself shouldn’t consort with the soldiers, he could at least encourage them to make the best of their lives. Hot Rod _should_ like his fellow Autobots, including the Earth commander—and it wasn’t too hard to like Hot Rod as well. 

Even if sometimes that exuberant youth could become a little grating.

A Valentine’s card said “ _I Like You_ ”—and that really wasn’t so bad after all.


End file.
